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Maymin: Iraq is communist

By Hoa Nguyen
Staff Writer

August 30, 2006

Libertarian candidate and Moscow native Phil Maymin declared Iraq to be a communist country last night at Town Hall, and as such, one that doesn't need American help.

In front of about 20 people, mostly family, friends and fellow Libertarians, the Cos Cob resident called for a withdrawal of troops from Iraq during a meeting he hosted in the Town Hall Meeting Room.

"Iraq is a communist country and this is an important point," Maymin said. "It's an important point because we shouldn't be defending a country that's communist. No, we're not defending Cuba. We're not defending China. Why should we be defending Iraq?"

Maymin is running for election to the 4th Congressional District against Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn. and Democratic challenger Diane Farrell. Maymin obtained enough signatures to have his name on the ballot, though he hasn't been able to persuade Shays or Farrell to debate him.

There are nearly a dozen debates between Shays and Farrell scheduled for next month and Maymin has been unable to persuade organizers to invite him. So the Libertarian organized his own last night and invited Shays and Farrell. Both declined the invitation and there was no sign of representatives from the Iraqi mission to the United Nations, whom Maymin said he also invited.

Instead, the third-party candidate held the meeting by himself and took questions and comments from a candidate-friendly crowd.

Maymin labeled Iraq's constitution as mimicking the tenets of the Communist Party, such as guaranteeing the right to health care and education and defining oil as property that belongs to the Iraqi people.

But though he criticized the country as becoming communist, Maymin said he does not believe in an immediate pullout of U.S. troops, but rather a deadline to leave of July 4, 2007.

"It's a day that Americans are supposed to celebrate the fact that we're free people, a proud people, we're independent of other people," he said. "And, yet, on this day we have to be taxed both in money and lives to support a foreign country, a communist country halfway around the world against our will? That's not right."

Greenwich resident Christopher Sandys, 35, didn't buy Maymin's characterization of Iraq.

"It's about as communist as Alaska," Sandys said, adding that the constitution in Alaska requires that the state's natural resources be used for the maximum benefit of its residents.

Several state Libertarians were at the meeting to support Maymin last night, taping the meeting and publicizing the campaigns of candidates in other races, including Arline Dunlop, a Libertarian running for state representative in the 82nd district in Meriden.